Patrice, I believe that you have captured the current state of affairs regarding government agency use of social media for emergency communication purposes. There are some additonal experiments such as the use of Twitter (MNRCentral) by the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources since 2008 to deliver forest fire and flood emergency messages. That account is now used for a broad spectrum of natural resource messages as well as the emergency utility.

The overall picture does remain as you have described and the sources of the barriers are a you have indicated.

I'm as optimistic as you are in the eventual development of these communication tools for the future. We can only continue our efforts to teach new emergency personnel how to use EM effectively. Perhaps, there will be a day when emergency messages will reach directly to those who need the information with the immediacy that SM permits.

Thank you Patrice for an excellent and I believe accurate report of social media use for emergency management in Canada.  I think this is a "must read" for our Canadian emergency managers. When it comes to emergency communications and social media a "head in the sand " approach as used by the ostrich won't work. The obstacles are not reasons for not proceeding but obstacles which need to be overcome in the interests of effectiveness.

Patrice this is an exceptional article on social media and it's use in Canada

and it's great potential for use in Emergency Management. I had a chance to

view the MASAS platform in action at the Gateway Exercise in Windsor/Essex County and is quite an impressive tool for emergency managers. Environment Canada, the MNR and EMO are also good examples of government departments using the social networks to interact and inform

citizens of hazards or potential hazards and visa versa. Thanks for posting

this article!